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silverskye13 · 2 months

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how do u write fighting or do u have any tips? i have an idea for a fanfic not mcyt related but im terrified ill write the fight scene poorly as it makes up a majority of the fic.

Fighting and fight scene tips! I have a couple I guess! The tricky thing is fight scenes are really subjective. It's hard to give a "and here's all the puzzle pieces you need for a good one" kinda answer. But I can at least tell you the stuff I think about while I'm writing.

You know the drill, writing tips under the cut:

1. Research

I feel like I put this on every tip list. Research the thing you're doing. The Internet is your greatest friend and confidante. Look up YouTube videos of fighting competitions. Look up the weapons your characters are using. Figure out how many bullets are in the magazine for the gun type your character is using. Research how far you have to be to survive that explosion. Figure out if the cool sword breaker was actually useful in combat and why. Get a reasonable measure for how much blood your blorbo can lose before they pass out. This will help you paint a clear picture for yourself about what needs to happen, and why. Your readers don't necessarily have to have that clear picture, but the more you, the writer, know, the more likely you are to write a consistent, understandable narrative.

2. Character POV is important!

What does your character even know about fighting anyway? <- the most important question to ask of your POV character. This establishes what your character can tell your audience about what's going on. Has your character never fought before? Are they familiar with the weapons used? Do they know counters for fighting styles? Do they even know how to throw a punch? Do they have a high pain tolerance? These things will inform how the character informs us, the readers, about what's going on. Generally speaking, lack of consistency is what makes fight scenes frustrating, in my opinion. Sitting there and going "hey wait, how did that teenager know better battle tactics than the general they're fighting?" Takes you out of the moment and ruins whatever cool thing that teenager just did. Going "hold on, what do you mean the sniper didn't realize he was out of bullets?" Does the same thing. Keeping the characters consistent stops your readers from questioning the validity of the scene.

3. What can your readers see, and is it the same as what the characters see?

Similar to above, but a little more meta. Fight scenes are often played for drama. You're putting the character in peril, and that peril is for a reason: to make the audience have an emotional response. Can the readers see an ambush because of your 3rd person omniscient perspective, but the characters can't? Is that a good thing? Will it ruin the shock and surprise of the ambush, or will it induce dread and up the stakes? The enemy has a poisoned sword. Is this obvious to the audience in a way that isn't for the character? This is playing with suspense in a fight, adding and subtracting stakes for the readers, and it needs to be balanced against what the characters know.

I'm mentioning this as a thing because revealing your hand to the audience can be a really interesting way to add suspense, but if the audience feels like a character should've been able to see it coming [ex. How come the assassin didn't anticipate someone poisoning a blade during a fight?] it ruins the immersion of the scene, and makes it feel like you the author are shoving the characters in a direction. Generally speaking if the readers can see the hand of the author moving, it breaks immersion.

[Notably, I don't write in 3rd person omniscient. I write in 3rd person limited. I don't often have a chance or reason to reveal information to the audience that the main character doesn't know, because the audience is observing the world through that character.]

4. What are the guys in the back doing?

Everyone knows the Main Character has to fight the Antagonist at some point, but normally the MC isn't alone. They have friends and allies, or their pet dog. They have a supporting cast, and that supporting cast wants to help the main character. So... where are they exactly? A pitfall I see in Big Final Fight Scenes pretty often is, the MC brings an army, or their crew, or their super friends or whoever, and yet somehow, they end up fighting the bad guy alone, and the writer just... Doesn't address the other people in the room. And you the reader are left going, "Wait, why is no one intervening?" This gets especially immersion breaking when the main character inevitably starts losing their fight [because drama, few fights are easy]. Our MC might die! Why is no one trying to run even a basic distraction on the Antag? This isn't to say you have to have your supporting cast get involved in the final fight -- sometimes you need that solo showdown! But you do have to have a convincing reason to keep the rest of the cast away. If we the readers are under the impression there's six other people in the room just standing there, because you the writer forgot they were there, it gets kinda awkward.

5. Zoom in! Feel it. Zoom out! See it.

Okay so, you now know: Basic information on how your character(s) fight, what your POV character(s) know, what the readers can see (either the same or different from your characters), and you know where everyone is and what they're doing. You have your god's eye view ready. How do you show it?

Zoom in, zoom out.

There is a balance to fight scenes, in about the same way there is a balance to an art piece. There is a foreground, middle ground, and background. Each have importance, each need focus. The foreground is what is happening immediately in front of your POV character, it's their thoughts, what their weapon feels like, any wounds they've taken. It's bullet time, and observations, and right in their face. The middle ground is the surrounding 5-10ft. It's the people beside them, it's what's just past their opponent. It's the rest of the room, or the sound just out of view, or the object just out of reach. The background is everything past that. It's distant explosions. It's their friend getting wounded. It's an archer on the next rooftop.

How much of that you want your audience to see, how you want to vary that, depends on what you as an author view as important. If you want to focus more on the character, their struggle, their opponent, you will write most of the fight scene in the foreground. Focus on what the character feels, the sensation of movement, the pain, fear, exhilaration. Focus on the words they're saying [or not saying]. Focus on what they know, what they're telling the audience. If you want to highlight the battle, how the main character is working in their surroundings, you will focus on the middle ground. This is what the character looks like from an outside perspective, how they fight against their opponent. This is them trying to reach an item, or shove their opponent into something. This is running, and kicking, and trying to figure out if your friend is still by your side. This is seeing your comrade go down out of the corner of your eye, or admiring someone's fighting style, or screaming orders at someone. The background is anything further away, a distant problem that is putting on pressure. A ticking time bomb. This is the building catching fire, the lightning in the storm overhead. This is superman fighting off the alien army while your MC is trying to kill the general. This is you reminding the audience the rest of the world hasn't stopped turning while the MC has been doing MC things.

Generally speaking, I like to move through all three spaces several times during a fight scene? The main character is hurting and holding onto their sword, and breathing is hard. The antag is pressing the advantage, trying to back them through the space. But they can't lose too much ground, because their friend is fighting the second antag over there, and they're bleeding from a fresh cut. They have to win, they have to escape, because the sound outside says the building is groaning on its foundation-- and the main character stumbles as the building rocks. [And I've just moved through all three types of ground, giving the audience a clear view of what's happening].

You don't have to bounce reliably through the space. Not showing the background for a long time means you can surprise your audience with a new hero or villain swooping in! Or leave us in suspense about that magic ritual we're supposed to be stopping. Not showing a middle ground side character implies your MC is so distracted they won't know their friend is hurt until it's too late -- etc.

If it helps, I like to imagine there's a little invisible camera panning around, taking dramatic shots of everything, like you're making a movie, and writing accordingly.

Uhm!! Hopefully that's helpful?

Some broader quick tips:

Fight scenes are very fast, and generally happen over a period of a few minutes. That time will feel significantly longer because it's jammed packed with Stuff Happening, but the fact remains, it's only a few minutes. Keeping the timing in mind helps you figure out if backup can arrive to help, or if it's reasonable for someone to miss the fight happening, etc,

On that note, if it's a battle specifically, battles [especially medieval ones] are short. They don't last all day, unless they're a siege, and even then, sieges are long periods of digging in and waiting with short clashes peppered around.

This might just be me, but try not to overuse metaphors? We get it. The swordsmen look like they're dancing. But not everything they do is graceful or dancer-y. Sometimes you can just say "and he punched him in the face." Unless your writing style is naturally super flowery, in which case, do continue. Consistency is key.

Do some basic research on wounds. Suspension of disbelief can only carry so far, and pain is genuinely debilitating. Also, yes coughing up blood is a very dramatic "the character is dying" cue, but in real life it only happens on very bad lung/throat wounds. If what you're writing is Super Realistic, maybe don't throw that in there.

Write confusion with care. You might not want your audience to know what's going on all the time, but if your audience genuinely can't figure out what's going on, why something is happening, or who it's happening to, you will eventually lose your immersion.

Write comedy with care. If your fight is non-serious, or if your character in a serious fight doesn't normally take things seriously, jokes are allowed to happen. But sometimes if you don't take it seriously enough, you will chop the knees off your drama. Maybe save some of the jokes for after the life-threatening battle is over.

I think! That's everything I can think of just now! I hope it helps :'D

#answering asks #anonymous #writing advice #writing tips #writing #apologies if this was incoherent at all #its 2am im very tired and this week has been hell #i wanted to answer this before i forgot it and it got buried

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